Extreme Ownership

I wasn’t sure I was going to like this book but, Kevin Carr really pushed it on me and, I’m glad he did.

I think this might have had more value for me as a boss/ business owner than it might have for our employees.

Here were the high points for me:

“relax, look around, make a call” p4- this applies in the weight room all the time. It’s like an audible at the line of scrimmage.

“the only meaningful measure of a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails” p8- we need to remind ourselves of this often ( you could also say the only meaningful analysis of your strength program is whether or not someone gets stronger?)

“ we encourage leaders to do the things they probably know they should but, aren’t”

“these things are simple but, not easy” p13- I say this all the time. Most of what we do ,or don’t do, falls into this category.

“ all responsibility for success or failure rest with the leader… there is no one else to blame”- this is something as leaders, owners, bosses we need to face up to all the time.

“if underperformers cannot improve, the leader must be able to make the tough call to terminate them and hire others who can get the job done. It’s all on the leader” p30

“there are no bad units, only bad leaders”

“it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate” p55- this hit home for me. I need to be better about not tolerating what I don’t want.

Decentralized Command

“human beings are not capable of managing more than 6-10 people” p183- again, great help for me. As our business has grown I have had to delegate more and that is a struggle. Now with the strength of our staff I actually do very little.

“teams must be broken down into manageable elements of 4-5” p183

“every leader must understand not only what they are doing but, why they are doing it” p183

“junior leaders must know that the boss will back them up even if they make a decision that that may not result in the best outcome, as long as the decision was made in an effort to achieve the strategic objective” p191

“ you need to brief so that the most junior man can fully understand the operation- the lowest common denominator” p213

Leading Up the Chain- a great lesson

“ if your boss isn’t making a decision in a timely manner … don’t blame the boss, blame yourself” p237

“ one of the most important jobs of any leader is to support your own boss” p237

Discipline Equals Freedom

“when the alarm goes off do you get out of bed… if you do, you win- you pass the test” p271- We can never hear this enough

“ the only way you could make time was to get up early. That took discipline” p271

“ the goal of a leader should be to work themselves out of a job” p286- This is my goal and I tell our staff that all the time. I want to make myself obsolete. If I do, I’ve been a great leader.

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